WHO downgrades COVID-19, no longer a global emergency

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced Friday it was ending its declaration of COVID-19 as a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), more than three years after it was first declared.

“For more than a year, the pandemic has been on a downward trend, with population immunity increasing from vaccination and infection, mortality decreasing and the pressure on health systems easing. This trend has allowed most countries to return to life as we knew it before COVID-19,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a press briefing Friday.

“Yesterday, the emergency committee met for the 15th time and recommended to me that I declare an end to the public health emergency of international concern. I have accepted that advice,” he said. “It is therefore with great hope that I declare COVID-19 over as a global health emergency.”

Didier Houssin, chair of the WHO’s International Health Regulations Committee for COVID-19, cited three reasons for the organization’s decision to end the global public health emergency.

Houssin said the criteria to warrant a transition from an emergency phase had been met.

“The situation has markedly improved with less mortality and an increased immunity against the virus immunity — which is vaccine induced or naturally induced — and the better access to diagnostics, vaccines and treatment,” Houssin said. 

Houssin also said the PHEIC declaration had served its purpose in helping to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, but it should not be overused and that it was not designed for situations involving subacute or chronic situation, such as the endemic phase of the coronavirus outbreak.

Lastly, Houssin said the emergency committee believes the WHO can effectively provide messaging on the transition away from the emergency while still advising member states and the public to not lower their guard regarding the virus.

“After more than three years, now is the time to confront COVID-19 pandemic, which has caused so much suffering, with new tools and new ambitions, one of them being also to prepare for future pandemics,” Houssin said.

Updated at 10:57 a.m.